National Post: 'Comparing the weekend’s overblown coverage of Ottawa’s Rolling Thunder protest to the concurrent violent May Day protests in Montreal, exposes the blatant double-standards of how Canada’s governing politicians confront political violence.
'The Rolling Thunder convoy of bikers protested what they termed the “desecration” of the National War Memorial by the police as they cleared the truckers from Ottawa in February. Also present were run-of-the-mill anti-COVID measure protesters. In some ways, Rolling Thunder did resemble the Freedom Convoy; a long column of vehicles that descended on Ottawa, kept the city’s residents up all night, and used by politicians to stir up fear, albeit with less success.
'Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued stern statements about possible hate crimes and violence before they arrived, while his cabinet ministers forecasted a possible repeat of the Freedom Convoy. Unfortunately for them, almost nothing politically beneficial, ie. a violent protest that they could use as a wedge, actually happened during the rather tame weekend in the capital.'